


"She Looked At Me (As She Did Love)"

by goldenteaset



Category: Little Nightmares (Video Game)
Genre: Cannibalism, Character Study, Creepy, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Female-Centric, Gen, Harm to Children, Human Trafficking, Mind Control, Original Character Death(s), Possessive Behavior, Pre-Game(s), Psychological Horror, The ins and outs of human-snatching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 11:12:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10875579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenteaset/pseuds/goldenteaset
Summary: "The Maw welcomes all hungers, in the end."





	"She Looked At Me (As She Did Love)"

**Author's Note:**

> This starts out covering the day-to-day of The Lady's life before going into her relationship with Six. It seemed like Six knew The Lady (well enough to have vivid dreams of her, anyway), but I like keeping the ambiguity of the game in-tact as much as I can. 
> 
> The title comes from John Keats' "La Belle Dame sans Merci". Appropriate for an otherworldly woman like The Lady, I think. :D
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Little Nightmares.

The Lady is very efficient in acquiring fresh produce for the feast. She keeps her voice sweet and gentle, and lures unsuspecting humans with promises of a lovely time in her immaculate home. The details are adjusted accordingly, of course—pigs may enjoy slop, but prize specimens need a varied diet. Very rarely do they decline, even though she is a stranger.

After all, at night, what is she to them but a strange and beautiful dream?

\---

In the early days, The Lady steals babies from their cribs.

She glides through the hospital, a living shadow with sharp hearing, and when she reaches the ward she wants, full of snuffling, cooing, fresh meat, she surveys them carefully to discover the choicest cuts. But the babies are watched over with great care. It’s a test of stealth and timing to snatch one. When she does, the meat still swaddled in its blankets, nuzzling at her chest in search of milk—she must leave at once.

In the end, despite her efforts, she finds that babies are little more than a mouthful. They’re impossible for her cooks to serve properly. And their wailing causes more trouble than it’s worth.

So she settles on meat that has time to grow, instead.

\---

When it comes to herding and cultivating, adult humans are easier to manage.

They have more meat on their bones than children, especially those in early adulthood. And they, too, can be lured to her Maw with a beautiful figure and sweetly spoken promises. Those who are desperate are more likely to listen, to _yearn_.

“In my home, you will never have to work for scraps again.”

“In my home, such pleasures await you, beautiful and sweet and warm to the touch.”

“In my home, you will find true peace, in the very depths of your soul. All doubt will vanish, and you can be as you truly are.”

The answer is always, always: “Please, take me there.”

Some kiss her feet, as white as frozen cream. Others—usually the children—take her outstretched hand, heedless of the silence where her pulse should be. All of them have the same look: glassy eyes bright with hunger, and smiles that hint at teeth.  

The Maw welcomes all hungers, in the end.

\---

When the humans arrive, they shuffle forward in single file, their hearts full to bursting with the desire to be paid their due. Not unlike the Guests. The Lady watches them enter from a balcony above, her eyes never missing a detail. The ones who jostle those in front of them, who complain at the slightest delay—they are the first to the kitchen. They want their reward early, after all. And that sort of temperament will not last the long wait for their turn on the chopping block.

The ritual is quite simple: they are dumped into the tub near the kitchen, scrubbed so clean their skin is raw to the touch, and beheaded. It's efficient and effective.

(In the beginning, The Lady used a delicate, detailed way of doing things. But the Chefs are set in their ways. And the Guests always crave more, more, heedless of the beauty of a well-prepared meal. So The Lady relents; her own feast is already prepared.)

The patient humans are kept locked away, and fed appropriately. That is to say, when they need fattening up. The children are the worst: like chicks, the peep and shriek incessantly, and if caged together will crawl over each other in their rush to feed their bellies. After one too many repeats of this, The Lady orders The Janitor to keep the children separate.

Thus, the Maw runs smoothly once again.

\---

Many, many decades after the Maw is first opened, something strange occurs: The Lady discovers a hunger of her own.

It’s not a hunger for love, as humans refer to it, nor a hunger for meat. Rather, it’s curiosity that must be sated. _What would it be like, to have a companion at her feast?_ The Guests seem to understand the concept of sharing meals. The Cooks keep each other company in their sweaty, greasy kitchen. Even the Janitor has the meat and his small treasures to spend his snatched moments of free time with.

But who does The Lady have?

She begins to play favorites.

The first is a geisha. This human is a beauty, a flower in a floating kingdom, and has begun to wilt. One night, in The Lady’s quarters, she refuses to play her shamisen. She claims her hands are blistered and raw. Tears slide down her face and mar the lacquered floorboards. The Lady sends her down to the kitchen without a second thought.

A soldier is next, handsome and bold and lost without a war to fight. He’s amusing, for a time, telling her tales of his exploits and showing off his battered, fragile medals. When he claims to fight in The Lady’s name—as if she would ever need protection from humans—she breaks him apart with her shadows with exquisite attention to detail.

More favorites follow suit, each more fleeting than the last. (All knaves, all three.) Slowly but surely, her hunger begins to be sated. It’s a welcome relief.

She can continue as she always has, feasting on the Guests’ hunger while they gorge themselves into oblivion.

All is as it should be.

\---

Then she spies Six.

Six—whose “true” name The Lady doesn’t care to recall—trudges out of a library in the middle of a rainstorm, just as The Lady swirls by after another grocery trip. Judging by the comfortable slouch of Six’s posture as she leans against the door, she’s probably waiting for her parents to come out. With the green awning above her head, she has no need to worry about the rain. The Lady senses no hungers in this girl, as if she’s already sated some inner part of herself. Six is a strange little creature in a lovely yellow raincoat as bright as the sun.

The Lady extends a shadow just out of Six’s line of sight, just to see what she’ll do.

The girl’s hand snatches at the rain-slick doorknob, prepared to turn it.

The Lady’s shadows curl about the overhead light, and it flickers and dies in an instant. Six pulls a lighter out of her raincoat pocket and flicks it on, seemingly unfazed.

The Lady doesn’t bother with the usual methods of luring a child away. She suspects that Six is a little more resilient than that, the way that certain clever rats will avoid poison. She swaddles Six in her shadows and leaves.

The only thing Six leaves behind is a smothered cry for help.

\---

It takes two years in human’s reckoning for Six to accept her new position. The Lady’s hypnotic spell has been perfected over many, many years. Even a human as determined as Six can’t fight it for long. It’s a series of gentle, honeyed assurances: _My child, my Six, so sweet to me. Stay nestled in our little den, and I will soon return again._

Then The Lady has to bathe the girl in shadows and dreams for hours upon hours, but oh it’s worth it. To see her feast as The Lady feasts, as the Guests gorge themselves below their chambers. To have her sit by The Lady’s side at her mirror, watching each stroke of the brush with thoughtful, rabbit-like eyes.

The Lady grows so charmed by this creature, in fact, that she dabbles in dress-up. For a human, Six looks rather sweet in kimonos, especially those that match The Lady’s. What a pair they make, strolling in their quarters, reading by the fire, watching the Guests stroll in.

From time to time, Six will have strange fits, as if the Guests down below can’t sate her any longer. But The Lady discovers a solution. Blood and milk, warm and fresh, eases Six’s hunger without fail.

Perhaps this amusing little favorite will stay in her good graces for a little while longer.

\---

But like all the favorites before her, Six eventually grows tiresome. The spell’s hold on her mind slackens, and The Lady has a business to run. Inevitably, she grows distracted. Inevitably, Six’s health fails.

The Lady enters her quarters one day to find Six clawing at the violet rug, writhing in time to the monstrous gurgling in her belly. The Lady stares down her nose at Six, and Six stares back. There is no warmth in the human’s eyes, now. She’s no better than the other cuts of meat down below.

“Wrong,” Six whines wretchedly, like all the others. “Something’s wrong with me…you _did_ something to me…!”

“What nonsense,” The Lady replies, and glides away to make a call. She’s given this wretch more than her share.

After the call ends, The Lady finds Six’s raincoat, tucked away in the back of her elegant closet. She takes it out, admiring the glossy material for a moment. Then she tosses it to Six, who clutches at it like it’s a lifeline in a stormy sea.

Six is taken away a moment later. The Lady can hear her struggling against The Bellhop, growling like a little beast.

“You _took them from me_ ,” Six’s voice carries from the sitting room, a harsh, ugly rasp from not speaking for so long. “You _took_ —”

The door shuts with a delicate _click_.

Now The Lady can unpin her hair in peace. It tumbles down to her shoulders in a dark wave, a whisper of sound in quarters hushed with tranquility.

She has a few minutes to spare before she must embark on another grocery trip. She will order The Bellhop to remove the little clothes she deigned to give that vermin, and take a bath to remove the stench. Then, just as it always does, the Maw’s machine will continue running, and she will maintain it with grace.

There is no more hunger in her, now. She, at least, has been sated. And if that vermin somehow escapes, well…The Lady will be waiting for her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :) Feedback is appreciated.


End file.
